As you will have seen from my post on Tuesday, I went into Harrogate for a spot of shopping. I popped into Boots for a bit of a nosey round and to pick up some bits, and ended up wandering past the Barry M stand. Now I had heard of these textured nail polishes before on the blogoverse but this was the first time I'd seen them in the flesh. Naturally I was curious so I picked up the shade Ridley Road to try out!

What drew me to this particular one was the shade... it's such a gorgeous cool, mint green that will look great for summer. This particular shade makes my hands look really tanned, so if you like that sort of effect you need to get your hands on this! Now normally I'm weary of pastel shades such as these and this one was no exception. Pastel shades for me tend to take three or four coats to apply and don't have the quickest drying time. This turned out to be a happy exception, as despite the texture it applied evenly, was opaque in two coats and dried quickly too.


Now onto the selling point, the texture. I wasn't really sure what to expect from this... I knew it was going to be gritty but would it catch on hair, clothing etc and drive me up the wall? Turns out this wasn't the case. The texture feels a lot like sandpaper, but softer and in all honesty doesn't feel any different to wearing a regular polish - that is to say it didn't feel strange on my nails. The texture isn't immediately noticeable but it's a nice surprise for people you show your nails to! It dried to a semi-matte finish; to be honest I expected it to be completely matte. However, there is definitely a little bit of shine there.


Normally I don't talk about wear time any more but I was curious to see how the effect changes over a few days. After the first day I noticed some tip wear - the texture had gone a little and the very tips were definitely smoother. However, it was only noticeable on very close inspection so don't let that put you off! The first chip appeared on the third day, but even now after the fifth day the majority of the nails are chip free. Overall I'm very impressed and I think I may have to go pick up the shade "Kingsland Road"!

Barry M Textured Nail Paints can be bought from Boots for £3.99 each.